98 Fun Facts about U.S. Presidents | FactRetriever.com 98 Fun Facts about U.S. Presidents By Karin Lehnardt, Senior Writer Published September 17, 2016 The only president to be unanimously elected was George Washington (1732-1799). He also refused to accept his presidential salary, which was $25,000 a year.[2] Because the KKK was a powerful political force, Truman was encouraged to join the organization. According to some accounts, he was inducted, though he was “never active.” Other accounts claim that though he gave the KKK a $10 membership fee, he demanded it back and was never inducted or initiated.[6][9] Grover Cleveland was the only president in history to hold the job of a hangman. He was once the sheriff of Erie County, New York, and twice had to spring the trap at a hanging.[11] The “S” in Harry S Truman doesn’t stand for anything; therefore, there is no period after his middle initial.[10] Lincoln Logs are named after Abraham Lincoln and the log cabin where he was born.

John Lloyd Wright, son of famous architect Francis Lloyd Wright, invented them.[11] By carving up Shakespeare's chair, Jefferson and Adams became some of America's earliest vandals Thomas Jefferson and John Adams once traveled to Stratford-upon-Avon to visit Shakespeare’s birthplace. While there, they took a knife to one of Shakespeare’s chairs so they could take home some wood chips as souvenirs.[9] James Madison and Thomas Jefferson were once arrested together for taking a carriage ride in the countryside of Vermont on a Sunday, which violated the laws of that state.[9] Andrew Johnson is the only tailor ever to be president. As president, he would typically stop by a tailor shop to say hello. He would wear only the suits that he made himself.[1] George Washington never lived in the White House. The capital was actually located in Philadelphia and other cities when Washington was president. He is also the only president who didn’t represent a political party.[2] James Abram Garfield (1831-1881) is the first president to ever talk on the phone.

When he spoke to Alexander Graham Bell, who was at the other end 13 miles away, he said: “Please speak a little more slowly.”[11] Twenty-ninth president Warren Gamaliel Harding (1865-1923) repeatedly made love to a young girl, Nan Britton, in a White House closet. On one occasion, Secret Service agents had to stop his wife from beating down the closet door.[5] Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) was the first president to be inaugurated in Washington, D.C.[8] The term “O.K.” derives from President Martin Van Buren (1782-1862) who was known as “Old Kinderhook” because he was raised in Kinderhook, New York. “O.K.” clubs were created to support Van Buren’s campaigns.[11] President Grover Cleveland (1837-1908) is the only president to be elected to two nonconsecutive terms. He was the 22nd and 24th president.[10] Bush is the only recorded U.S. president in history to vomit on a foreign dignitary After President Bush Sr.

vomited on the Japanese Prime Minister, a new word entered the Japanese language. Bushusuru means “to do the Bush thing,” or to publicly vomit.[11] John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s (1917-1963) famous inaugural line “Ask not what you your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country” echoes similar directives made by many others, including Cicero, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. and President Warren G. Harding, who told the 1916 Republican convention: “We must have a citizenship less concerned about what the government can do for it, and more anxious about what it can do for the nation.”[11] Martin Van Buren was the first to be a United States citizen.

All previous presidents were born British subjects.[7] Six presidents were named James: Madison, Monroe, Polk, Buchanan, Garfield, and Carter.[11] President Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969) was the only president to serve in both WWI and WWII.[8] Richard Milhous Nixon (1913-1994) was the first president to visit all 50 states and the first to visit China. He is the only president to resign.[10] James Earl “Jimmy” Carter (1924-) was the first president to be born in a hospital.[11] Jimmy Carter is the first known president to go on record as seeing a UFO.[11] Before he was president, Lincoln was a licensed bartender Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) is the only U.S. president who was also a licensed bartender. He was co-owner of Berry and Lincoln, a saloon in Springfield, Illinois.[2] George H. W.

Bush (1924-) was the first serving vice president to be elected president since Martin Van Buren.[11] William Jefferson “Bill” Clinton (1946-) was the first U.S. Democratic president to win re-election since FDR.[11] Abraham Lincoln was the only presidential candidate who was not a Mason in the 1860 election.[9] President James Buchanan (1791-1868) quietly but consistently bought slaves in Washington, D.C., and then set them free in Pennsylvania.[7] Herbert Clark Hoover (1874-1964) gave his White House servants strict orders to hide from him whenever he passed by. Those who failed to do so were at risk of being fired.[7] James Buchanan is the only bachelor president. He was virtually inseparable from William R. King (1786-1853), a senator from Alabama, earning the pair the nickname “Miss Nancy and Aunt Fancy” and “Mr. Buchanan and his wife.”[3] Ulysses S.

Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant, 1822-1885) smoked at least 20 cigars a day and, after a brilliant war victory, a nation of well wishers sent him more than 10,000 cigars. He later died of throat cancer.[9] Dwight D. Eisenhower had an affair with his wartime driver, Kay Summersby (1908-1975). Kay later wrote a book called Past Forgetting: My Love Affair with Dwight D. Eisenhower in which she claims he was impotent.[5] John F. “Jack” Kennedy most likely had the most active extramarital sex life of any president. He allegedly slept with Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield, Audrey Hepburn, Angie Dickinson, stripper Blaze Starr, Marlene Dietrich, and many other women including White House staffers, secretaries, stewardess, campaign workers, strippers, and acquaintances of trusted male friends.

The FBI taped sounds of him and Inga Arvad making love.[4] Johnson nicknamed his genitals "Jumbo" Lyndon Baines Johnson “LBJ”(1908-1973) affectionately called the many women he slept with his “harem.” He even had a buzzer system installed that rang inside the Oval Office so that Secret Service could warn him when his wife was coming.[3] Every member of Teddy Roosevelt’s family owned a pair of stilts, including the first lady.[11] Sally Hemings (ca. 1773-1885) was not only Jefferson’s slave, but also the half-sister of Jefferson’s dead wife. She is said to have been Jefferson’s mistress for thirty-eight years, and scholars have argued for years whether Jefferson was the father of her children. DNA tests in 1998 revealed that a male in Jefferson’s line was the father of at least one of her children, though it did not prove conclusively that Jefferson himself fathered them.[3] When Martin Van Buren wrote his autobiography after serving as president from 1837-1841, he didn’t mention his wife of 12 years.

Not even once.[9] John Tyler (1790-1862) had more children than any other president. He had eight by his first wife and seven by his second. He was 70 when his last child, Pearl, was born. He was also the first president to get married in office, though his eight children form his first wife did not approve of the wedding and did not attend.[10] Ronald Wilson Reagan (1911-2004) won the Most Nearly Perfect Male Figure Award from the University of California in 1940.[11] Thomas Jefferson had a family of plants named after him, Jeffersonia diphylla, which is also known as twin root or rheumatism root.[11] Thomas Jefferson wrote “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth,” which was discovered after his death by his daughter. It argues that Jesus Christ was a great thinker, but that he was devoid of other worldly qualities that made him the center of Christianity.[11] James Madison (1751-1836) was the shortest president of the United States, standing at only 5’4”.

He never weighed more than 100 pounds.[10] George Washington made the shortest inauguration speech on record—133 words and less than two minutes long.[2] William Henry Harrison (1773-1841) holds the record for the longest inauguration speech in history at 8,578 words long and one hour and 40 minutes. Unfortunately, he gave the speech during bad weather and a month later, he was dead from pneumonia, making his the shortest presidency on record.[10] John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) would often skinny dip in the Potomac River.[9] Adams would swim at 5 a.m.

in the Potomac River every day to deal with the stress of being president George Washington, James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, James Polk, James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, James Garfield, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, William Taft, Warren Harding, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, and Gerald Ford were all Masons, many symbols of which are found on American currency.[9] The body of John Scott Harrison, father of President of Benjamin Harrison, was stolen by grave robbers and sold to Ohio Medical College in Cincinnati for use as a training cadaver. The body was eventually recovered and reburied.[11] Gerald Rudolph Ford’s (1913-2006) name before he was adopted was Leslie Lynch King Jr.[7] The youngest president was Teddy Roosevelt who became president at age 42 when McKinley (1843-1901) was assassinated.

JFK was the youngest president elected at the age of 43.[10] As a young man, Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822-1893) fought lyssophobia, or the fear of going insane.[11] Three presidents died on July 4th: Thomas Jefferson (1826), John Adams (1826), and James Monroe (1831). Calvin Coolidge is the only president to have been born on the Fourth (1872).[8] George Herbert Walker Bush is the only President with four names.[11] James Garfield could write Latin with one hand and Greek with the other hand simultaneously.[9] Roosevelt was also the first President to win a Nobel Peace Prize “Teddy Bears” were so named when Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt (1858-1919) refused to shoot a small bear cub one day.

The incident was reported in the news, which inspired a toy manufacture to come out with the cute stuffed animals.[1] The three best known Western names in China are Jesus Christ, Elvis Presley, and Richard Nixon.[11] James Monroe (1758-1831) once chased his Secretary of State from the White House with a pair of fire tongs.[9] When Mexican general Santa Ana demanded Zachary Taylor (“Old Rough and Ready,” 1784-1850) to surrender, Taylor said, “Tell him to go to hell.”[9] Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) was reportedly involved in over 100 duels, most to defend the honor of his wife, Rachel. He had a bullet in his chest from an 1806 duel and another bullet in his arm from a barroom fight in 1813 with Missouri senator Thomas Hart Benton.[7] Herbert Hoover was an orphan whose first job was picking bugs off potato plants, for which he was paid a dollar per hundred bugs. He also was a mine worker.[2] Gerald Ford worked as a model during college.

He also worked as a forest ranger at Yellowstone National Park directing traffic and feeding the bears.[1] In 1945, Congress voted to commemorate the work FDR did for the March of Dimes by putting his profile on the coin.[9] Abraham Lincoln was the first president to ever be photographed at his inauguration. In the photo, he is standing near John Wilkes Booth, his future assassin.[11] Robert Lincoln is the only man in U.S. history known to have witnessed the assassinations of three different presidents, his father, James Garfield, and William McKinley. After he saw anarchist Leon Czolgosz shoot McKinley, he vowed he would never again appear in public with an incumbent president.[9] An anarchist and lawyer named Charles Guiteau shot James Garfield in the back with a five-barrel, .44-caliber pistol called a British Bulldog in 1881. He said he chose the gun because it would look good on a display in a museum someday. No one currently knows where the gun is.[2] Taft was also the only U.S. president to also serve as chief justice of the U.S.

Supreme Court At 325 pounds, William Howard Taft (1857-1930), who was dubbed “Big Bill,” was the largest president in American history and often got stuck in the White House bathtub. His advisors had to sometimes pull him out.[2] The first attempt to assassinate a president was on Andrew Jackson by Richard Lawrence, a house painter. Both of his guns misfired, however—an event that statisticians say could occur only once in 125,000 times. Andrew Jackson then chased Lawrence with his walking stick.[10] James Garfield didn’t die from the gunshot wounds from his assassin’s gun; he died of blood poisoning after doctors and experts (including Alexander Graham Bell) tried to remove the bullet from his back with their dirty fingers and instruments, causing him to linger in pain for 80 days before dying. His assassin, Charles Guiteau, later claimed that he didn’t kill the president, the doctors had.[9] Harding was obsessed with poker and once bet an entire set of priceless White House China and lost it.[11] During his second run for presidency, Teddy Roosevelt was shot by a would-be assassin while giving a speech in Milwaukee.

He continued to deliver his speech with the bullet in his chest.[9] Woodrow Wilson (born Thomas Woodrow Wilson, 1856-1924) would paint his golf balls black during the winter so he could continue playing in the snow.[1] Thomas Jefferson was convinced that if he soaked his feet in a bucket of cold water every day, he’d never get a cold.[11] Teddy Roosevelt’s last request before dying was “Please put out the light.” Thomas Jefferson’s last words were “This is the Fourth?” John Adam’s dying words were “Thomas Jefferson still survives,” unaware that Jefferson had passed away a few hours earlier.[11] George Washington didn’t have enough money to get to his own inauguration so he had to borrow $600 from his neighbor.[9] Washington, Jackson, Van Buren, Taylor, Fillmore, Lincoln, A. Johnson, Cleveland, and Truman did not attend college. Harry Truman is the only twentieth-century president without a college degree.[2] On his epitaph, which he composed, Jefferson mentions that he was the author of the Declaration of Independence and the Statuette of Virginia for Religious Freedom and that he was the father of the University of Virginia.

He neglected to mention he had been the President of the United States.[7] No man who ever held the office of president would congratulate a friend on obtaining it. - John Adams The capital of Liberia is called Monrovia after President James Monroe.[11] In 1978, President Jimmy Carter, the first Southerner elected to the presidency following the Civil War, restored U.S. citizenship to Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States of America.[9] Samuel Mudd, the doctor who treated the broken ankle of Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth, received a presidential pardon in 1869 from Ulysses S. Grant.[9] No president has ever been an only child.[10] Historians argue whether George Washington actually added the phrase "“so help me God” to the end of presidential oath. As far as can be determined, the first President who is known to have appended the phrase to the oath was Chester Alan Arthur.

He added the phrase when he was sworn into office on September 22, 1881, after the death of President Garfield.[2] John Adams' campaign propaganda against Jefferson said that if Jefferson was elected, “murder, robbery, rape, adultery, and incest will be openly taught and practiced.” They later resolved their differences and wrote many letters to each other.[9] It was so cold at Ulysses S. Grant’s presidential inauguration that the canaries that were supposed to sing at the inaugural ball froze to death.[11] Calvin Coolidge liked to have his head rubbed with petroleum jelly while eating his breakfast in bed.[2] He believed rubbing the jelly on his head was good for his health Every so often, Calvin Coolidge would press all the buttons on the President’s desk and hide and watch his staff run in. He would then pop out from behind the door and say that he was just seeing if everyone was working.[2] The first president to be born outside the original 13 States was Lincoln.[11] Jimmy Carter was a wealthy peanut farmer in Plains, Georgia.

A farming accident left one of his fingers permanently bent.[2] William McKinley, Grover Cleveland, and James Madison are on the $500, $1000, and $5000 bill, respectively. The bills are still used as legal tender but are no longer being printed.[2] Abraham Lincoln is the only president to receive a patent (# 6469). He was the first president to have a beard, at the request from a little girl named Gracie Bedell. The first child to die in the White House was Abraham Lincoln’s 12-year old son, Willie.[9] Abraham Lincoln was the tallest president at 6' 4."[9] Several of his descendants and a few historians claim that John Hanson (1721-1783) is actually the forgotten first president of the United States because he was the first president under the Articles of Confederation.[10] William McKinley was the first to ride in a self-propelled vehicle—the electric ambulance that took him to the hospital after he had been shot.[11] The presidential faces on Mount Rushmore are as high as a five-story building, about 60' from chin to top of the head.

The pupils of eyes are 4' across and the mouths are 18' wide. The carving took 14 years, from 1927-1941. The total cost was about $990,000. A total 450,000 tons of stone was removed.[2] George Washington’s original ancestral name was de Wessyngton, from a certain William de Hertburn, a twelfth-century noble knight of the manor and village of Wessyngton who later changed his name to de Wessyngton (which is the Norman spelling of Washington).[9] Woodrow Wilson was the first to show a motion picture in the White House: The Birth of Nation, which has become the most banned film in American history.[11] JFK died younger than any other U.S. president to date JFK was the first Roman Catholic to be president, the first Boy Scout to become president, and the first president to be born in the twentieth century.[9] Warren Harding was the first president to own a radio, the first to make speech over the radio, and the first to ride to his inauguration in a car.

When women got the right to vote, he was the first president they could elect.[11] Gerald Ford was the first person to be both vice president and president without being elected by the people. He was appointed vice president when Spiro Agnew resigned and he succeeded to the presidency when Nixon resigned.[7] Rutherford Hayes banished alcohol from the White House and held gospel sing-alongs every night in the White House.[11] Andrew Johnson was the first president to be impeached. He was acquitted by one vote in the Senate. It would be another 131 years before another president, Bill Clinton, would be impeached.[10] Pinnable Facts Keyword Tags #Educational #FactOfTheDay #Interesting #FastFacts #Awesome #SchoolProject #Animation #YouTube #Conservative #Democrat #Liberal #Politics #Republican #Government #PresidentsDay #February #GeorgeWashington #USPresidents #UnitedStatesOfAmerica #AbrahamLincoln #TheodoreRoosevelt #Shakespeare #WashingtonDC #Elections #WWI #WWII #WhiteHouse #InaugurationDay #TeddyBear #ExecutiveBranch References 1 Boller, Paul F. Jr.

Presidential Diversion: Presidents at Play from George Washington to George W. Bush. Orlando, FL: Harcourt Books, 2007. 2 Frank, Sid and Arden Davis Melick. The Presidents: Tidbits and Trivia. New York, NY: Greenwich House, 1977. 3 Garrison, Webb. Love, Lust, and Longing in the White House. Nashville, TN: Cumberland House, 2000. 4 Gregory, Leland H. Presidential Indiscretions. New York, NY: Dell Publishing, 1999. 5 Hagood, Wesley O. Presidential Sex: From the Founding Fathers to Bill Clinton. Secaucus, NJ: Citadel Press, 1996. 6 McCullough, David.Truman. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2003. 7 McPhereson, James M., Ed. “To the Best of My Ability”: The American Presidents. New York, NY: Dorling Kindersley Publishing, Inc ,2000. 8 Nelson, Michael, Ed. The Presidency: A to Z. Washington D.

C.: Congressional Quarterly, Inc, 1998. 9 O’Brien, Cormac. Secret Lives of the U.S. Presidents: What Your Teachers Never Told You about the Men of the White House. Philadelphia, PA: Quirk Books ,2004. 10 Smith, Carter. Presidents: Every Question Answered. Irvington, NY: Hylas Publishing, 2004. 11 Stebben, Gregg and Jim Morris. White House Confidential: The Little Book of Weird Presidential History. Nashville, TN: Cumberland House Publishing ,1998. Suggested for you Despite the Newsweek Cover Claim, James Buchanan Was Our First Gay President | TIME.com Follow @TIMENewsfeed You may have seen the other controversial newsmagazine cover this week, the one where Newsweek dubbed President Obama “ The First Gay President “. But as Jim Loewen at the History News Network would like to remind us, even if Obama were gay, he wouldn’t be the first: more than 150 years before the United States had its first black president, it had its first homosexual commander in chief.

(MORE: Gay Marriage in the Swing States: Where Will Obama’s ‘Evolution’ Matter?) Loewen is one of several historians who believe that James Buchanan, who served from 1857 to 1861, was in fact our first gay president. He is the only president to have remained a bachelor throughout his life. (His niece, Harriet Lane, handled the duties of First Lady during his term in office.) He shared a home with William Rufus King, an Alabama Senator and Vice President under Buchanan’s predecessor, Franklin Pierce. Their relationship was reportedly so close that Andrew Jackson and other contemporaries referred to them as “Miss Nancy” and “Aunt Fancy”. In one letter to a confidante dated May 13, 1844, Buchanan wrote about his life after King moved to Paris to become the American ambassador to France: “I am now ‘solitary and alone,’ having no companion in the house with me. I have gone a wooing to several gentlemen, but have not succeeded with any one of them.

I feel that it is not good for man to be alone; and should not be astonished to find myself married to some old maid who can nurse me when I am sick, provide good dinners for me when I am well, and not expect from me any very ardent or romantic affection.” Other historians, however, believe that his relationship with King was in fact more complex than that, and that the book is far from closed on the matter of Buchanan’s sexuality (he was at one point engaged to be married, and went a wooing with several ladies in addition to the aforementioned gentlemen). Either way, it’s also almost impossible to know for sure: Buchanan ordered that all his correspondence be destroyed upon his death. (MORE: In Gay Marriage Reversal, President Obama Faces Risk on All Sides) But Loewen, author of Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, notes that — importantly — Buchanan’s rumored sexuality was not a secret at the time. For much of the 19th century, American society was considerably more open and accepting than it was in much of the century that followed.

It’s a concept that many of us have trouble grasping: indeed, one of the reasons Americans have trouble viewing the past as more progressive than today is because of the narrative many high school history books follow, which portrays the United States as a country that started great and is getting better — “chronological ethnocentrism”, as he terms it. This type of thinking leaves many students to see history as irrelevant: inconsequential events of the distant past that are totally separate from issues we face today. And while Loewen notes that Obama’s stance on gay marriage is a welcome departure from our recent past, to tout modern American society as more tolerant than any in our history is a claim that has yet to pass the test of time. Our real first gay president - Salon.com Monday, May 14, 2012 6:09 PM UTC Our real first gay president Don't believe what Newsweek's cover tells you: The first gay president was James Buchanan more than a century ago This piece originally appeared on History News Network . The new issue of Newsweek features a cover photo of President Obama topped by a rainbow-colored halo and captioned “The First Gay President.” The halo and caption strike me as cheap sensationalism.

I realize airport travelers look at a magazine for 2.2 seconds before moving on to the next one. I grant that this cover will probably get Newsweek a 4.4 second glance. I also understand that Newsweek is desperate for sales. Nevertheless, I doubt that the Newsweek of old, before it was sold for a dollar, would have pandered as shallowly. The caption is a superficial way to characterize an important development of thought that the president — along with the country — has been making over recent years. It is also entirely wrong. Like the mini-furor a couple of months back about the claim that Richard Nixon was our first gay president , the story simply ignores that the U.S. already had a gay president more than a century ago. There can be no doubt that James Buchanan was gay, before, during and after his four years in the White House. Moreover, the nation knew it, too — he was not far into the closet. Today, I know no historian who has studied the matter and thinks Buchanan was heterosexual.

Fifteen years ago, historian John Howard, author of “ Men Like That ,” a pioneering study of queer culture in Mississippi, shared with me the key documents, including Buchanan’s May 13, 1844, letter to a Mrs. Roosevelt. Describing his deteriorating social life after his great love, William Rufus King, senator from Alabama, had moved to Paris to become our ambassador to France, Buchanan wrote: I am now “solitary and alone,” having no companion in the house with me. I have gone a wooing to several gentlemen, but have not succeeded with any one of them. I feel that it is not good for man to be alone; and should not be astonished to find myself married to some old maid who can nurse me when I am sick, provide good dinners for me when I am well, and not expect from me any very ardent or romantic affection. Despite such evidence, one reason why Americans find it hard to believe Buchanan could have been gay is that we have a touching belief in progress. Our high school history textbooks’ overall story line is, “We started out great and have been getting better ever since,” more or less automatically.

Thus we must be more tolerant now than we were way back in the middle of the 19th century! Buchanan could not have been gay then, else we would not seem more tolerant now. This ideology of progress amounts to a chronological form of ethnocentrism. Thus chronological ethnocentrism is the belief that we now live in a better society, compared to past societies. Of course, ethnocentrism is the anthropological term for the attitude that our society is better than any other society now existing, and theirs are OK to the degree that they are like ours. Chronological ethnocentrism plays a helpful role for history textbook authors: it lets them sequester bad things, from racism to the robber barons, in the distant past. Unfortunately for students, it also makes history impossibly dull, because we all “know” everything turned out for the best. It also makes history irrelevant, because it separates what we might learn about, say, racism or the robber barons in the past from issues of the here and now. Unfortunately for us all, just as ethnocentrism makes us less able to learn from other societies, chronological ethnocentrism makes us less able to learn from our past.

It makes us stupider. To think even for a moment about aspects of personal presentation other than sexual orientation forces us to realize that we today are not necessarily more tolerant. Consider facial hair. In 1864, with a beard, Abraham Lincoln won reelection. Could that happen nowadays? Is it mere chance that no candidate with facial hair has won the presidency since William Howard Taft — and he wore only a mustache? Indeed, since Thomas Dewey in 1948 no major party candidate with facial hair has even run for president, and Dewey wore only the smallest of mustaches. Perhaps the presidency is too small a sample. Let’s add in the Supreme Court. Since 1930, 34 different men have served on the Supreme Court. All save Thurgood Marshall have been clean-shaven.

(Lest readers think that Marshall’s tiny mustache might topple this argument, let me point out that during most of the last 82 years, 70 percent of adult black males have had some facial hair, yet the only three African-Americans to have served on the Supreme Court or as president have had almost none.) The chance that a random sample of 33 white males would have had no facial hair is something like (.9)33 or about .03, not very likely. “Even” today, many institutions, from investment banking firms to Brigham Young University, flatly prohibit beards on white males. Brigham Young falsifies its past to make this rule seem “natural.” Its chief founder, John Maeser, usually wore a full beard and mustache. In front of the building bearing his name stands his bronze statue complete with full beard and mustache. In about 1960, however, perhaps earlier, BYU banned beards. Then in 1986, the university commissioned artist Ron Bell to paint a portrait of Maeser. Working from an old photograph, Bell did; of course, Maeser wound up bearded. So the administration asked him to remove the beard.

“They didn’t want today’s students to believe they could follow suit,” in the artist’s words. He complied. If this example seems too religious, consider the huge secular company Walt Disney Enterprises. The last time I visited Disney World, it still banned facial hair, although it quietly made exceptions for African-Americans with well-trimmed beards or mustaches. In themselves, beards may not be signs of progress, although mine has subtly improved my thinking. Nevertheless, we reached an arresting state of intolerance when the Disney organization, founded by a man with a mustache, would not allow one even on a janitor. Moreover, before we trivialize these examples by thinking they apply only to facial hair, consider that Lincoln was also our last president who was not a member of a Christian denomination when taking office. Could a non-Christian like Jefferson or Lincoln be president today? It’s not clear. All that said, President Obama’s change of heart about gay marriage remains significant. It does show increasing tolerance compared to our recent past. During the nadir of race relations, that terrible period between 1890 and about 1940 when white America went more racist in its thinking than at any other time, the U.S.

also clamped down on beards, liquor (briefly) and, yes, homosexuals. As Jackie Robinson was not the first black player in Major League Baseball, but rather the first after the nadir, so President Obama is not our “first gay” president (Forgive me: I cannot seem to retype Newsweek’s silly headline without putting quotation marks around the words), but only our “first” since the nadir. Remembering that James Buchanan was homosexual complexifies our national narrative, to be sure, but it is a complexity that we need. It prompts us to remember that terrible era, the nadir, when we all moved backward, not just the South. Not just organized baseball but also the Kentucky Derby, the NFL and even previously “black” jobs like railroad foremen got redefined “white only.” Communities across the North became sundown towns, barring African-Americans formally or informally. Even North Dakota outlawed interracial marriage. Forgetting Buchanan’s sexual orientation helps us forget all the other national secrets we have packed into that closet with him. Ultimately, it prompts us to succumb to chronological ethnocentrism.

If, however, we can rid ourselves of the fantasy that we are always getting better, then maybe we can create a nation that actually becomes more tolerant. Then we might — again — elect a real gay president. After all, just three months ago , Disney started letting white male employees grow beards. Presidential Election Facts - U.S. Presidents - HISTORY.com Presidential Election Facts A+E Networks Introduction With more than two centuries’ worth of U.S. presidential elections, the historical ledger is filled with an array of facts. For example, when Barack Obama was named the 44th president, he was really only the 43rd president because Grover Cleveland is counted twice. And with Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution stating that a citizen has to be at least 35 years old to become president, John F. Kennedy came the closest to that limit by earning election at age 43. Learn about the only bachelor to be elected president, the four candidates to have won the popular vote and lost the election and more. Google The 2000 election was not the first time a candidate won the popular vote but lost the election.

It has happened four times in our nation’s history: In 1824 Andrew Jackson won the popular vote but got less than 50 percent of the electoral votes. John Quincy Adams became the next president when he was picked by the House of Representatives. In 1876 Samuel Tilden won the popular vote but lost the election when Rutherford B. Hayes got 185 electoral votes to Tilden’s 184. In 1888 Grover Cleveland won the popular vote but lost the election when Benjamin Harrison got 233 electoral votes to Cleveland’s 168. In 2000 Al Gore won the popular vote but lost the election to George Bush. In the most highly contested election in modern history, the U.S. Supreme Court stopped the Florida recount of ballots, giving Bush the state’s 25 electoral votes for a total of 271 to Gore’s 255. Grover Cleveland was elected president (1884) then lost his re-election campaign (1888) and came back again to win the presidency for a second time.

(1892) Barack Obama is the nation’s 44rd president but in reality there have only been 43 presidents. Grover Cleveland is counted twice as our 22nd and 24th president because he was elected for two nonconsecutive terms. Only 12 U.S. Presidents have been elected to office for two terms and served those two terms. Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected to office four terms prior to the Twenty-second Amendment. Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution has only three requirements for a president. (1) Must be at least 35 years old, (2) have lived in the United States at least 14 years, and (3) be a natural-born citizen. John Kennedy is the youngest elected U.S. President at 43. Ronald Reagan is the oldest elected U.S. President at 73. (second term) The only President and Vice President to never be elected to the office was Gerald Ford . He became vice president when Spiro Agnew resigned and became president when Nixon resigned. The tallest U.S. President was Abraham Lincoln at 6’4″The shortest U.S.

President was James Madison at 5’4″ Percent wise – the 1992 election was the biggest turnout since 1972 with 61.3 percent off the voter age population heading to the polls. James Buchanan is the only bachelor to be elected president. Eight presidents have died in office. William Henry Harrison (pneumonia) Franklin D. Roosevelt (cerebral hemorrhage) John F. Kennedy (assassin) Ronald Reagan is the only divorced man to be elected president. James Monroe received every electoral vote but one in the 1820 election. A New Hampshire delegate wanted George Washington to be the only president elected unanimously. The U.S. Marine band has played at every presidential inauguration since 1801. President John Tyler is believed to be the first to use “Hail to the Chief” as the official Presidential honors. President Bill Clinton was born William Jefferson Blythe but took his stepfather’s last name when his mother remarried. He formally changed his name to William Jefferson Clinton when he was 15. Victoria Woodhull became the first woman to run for President in 1872.

Hillary Clinton became the first woman to be nominated for president by a major party ticket in 2016. Jeanette Rankin of Montana became the first woman elected to Congress in 1916. John Mercer Langston became the first elected black politician in the United States in 1855 when he was elected Town Clerk in Brownhelm, Ohio . Twelve of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence were 35 years or younger. Martin Van Buren was the first natural-born American to become president in 1837. Each of the seven previous presidents were born as British subjects.Article II, Section 1, of the Constitution states; Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation: “I do solemnly swear [or affirm] that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Access hundreds of hours of historical video, commercial free, with HISTORY Vault . Start your free trial today.

Tags James Buchanan | whitehouse.gov Air Force One James Buchanan James Buchanan, the 15th President of the United States (1857-1861), served immediately prior to the American Civil War. He remains the only President to be elected from Pennsylvania and to remain a lifelong bachelor. Tall, stately, stiffly formal in the high stock he wore around his jowls, James Buchanan was the only President who never married. Presiding over a rapidly dividing Nation, Buchanan grasped inadequately the political realities of the time. Relying on constitutional doctrines to close the widening rift over slavery, he failed to understand that the North would not accept constitutional arguments which favored the South. Nor could he realize how sectionalism had realigned political parties: the Democrats split; the Whigs were destroyed, giving rise to the Republicans. Born into a well-to-do Pennsylvania family in 1791, Buchanan, a graduate of Dickinson College, was gifted as a debater and learned in the law. He was elected five times to the House of Representatives; then, after an interlude as Minister to Russia, served for a decade in the Senate. He became Polk's Secretary of State and Pierce's Minister to Great Britain.

Service abroad helped to bring him the Democratic nomination in 1856 because it had exempted him from involvement in bitter domestic controversies. As President-elect, Buchanan thought the crisis would disappear if he maintained a sectional balance in his appointments and could persuade the people to accept constitutional law as the Supreme Court interpreted it. The Court was considering the legality of restricting slavery in the territories, and two justices hinted to Buchanan what the decision would be. Thus, in his Inaugural the President referred to the territorial question as "happily, a matter of but little practical importance" since the Supreme Court was about to settle it "speedily and finally." Two days later Chief Justice Roger B. Taney delivered the Dred Scott decision, asserting that Congress had no constitutional power to deprive persons of their property rights in slaves in the territories. Southerners were delighted, but the decision created a furor in the North. Buchanan decided to end the troubles in Kansas by urging the admission of the territory as a slave state. Although he directed his Presidential authority to this goal, he further angered the Republicans and alienated members of his own party. Kansas remained a territory.

When Republicans won a plurality in the House in 1858, every significant bill they passed fell before southern votes in the Senate or a Presidential veto. The Federal Government reached a stalemate. Sectional strife rose to such a pitch in 1860 that the Democratic Party split into northern and southern wings, each nominating its own candidate for the Presidency. Consequently, when the Republicans nominated Abraham Lincoln, it was a foregone conclusion that he would be elected even though his name appeared on no southern ballot. Rather than accept a Republican administration, the southern "fire-eaters" advocated secession. President Buchanan, dismayed and hesitant, denied the legal right of states to secede but held that the Federal Government legally could not prevent them. He hoped for compromise, but secessionist leaders did not want compromise. Then Buchanan took a more militant tack. As several Cabinet members resigned, he appointed northerners, and sent the Star of the West to carry reinforcements to Fort Sumter. On January 9, 1861, the vessel was far away. Buchanan reverted to a policy of inactivity that continued until he left office.

In March 1861 he retired to his Pennsylvania home Wheatland--where he died seven years later--leaving his successor to resolve the frightful issue facing the Nation. The Presidential biographies on WhiteHouse.gov are from “The Presidents of the United States of America,” by Frank Freidel and Hugh Sidey. Copyright 2006 by the White House Historical Association. Learn more about James Buchanan 's niece who served as First Lady, Harriet Lane .

Question: Who so far, has been the only bachelor President of the U.S.A.?
Answer: JAMES BUCHANAN